The Internet is increasingly being used by service providers for the streaming of audio and video content. During peak operational loads, approximately two-thirds of all downstream Internet traffic across North America constitutes audio and/or video-streaming services provided by such service providers. In one case, up to half of such traffic may be accounted to a single service provider. Such usage also can be the result of a small percentage of Internet users. Such a pattern of downstream traffic poses a threat to both the Internet and service providers. The small percentage of Internet users consuming an extraordinary amount of network bandwidth during peak usage may cause frequent network congestion that impacts the usage of all users. Further, service providers are obligated to have resources on standby to cope with the on-peak usage even though the resources are not used during off-peak times. Such usage of the resources amounts to waste. Accordingly, service providers face significant technical challenges in shifting Internet usage away from on-peak times.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for diverting delivery of content to off-peak times.